9 S.E.2d 65 | Ga. | 1940
It was error to dismiss, on the sole ground of demurrer that a non-resident defendant (formerly husband of the plaintiff divorcee) was not properly before the court on service by publication, a suit to reform an insurance policy taken out by him on her life, in which he was named as beneficiary, and on which, as she alleged, she had paid premiums without reimbursement, etc.
1. While "the courts of this State have no extraterritorial jurisdiction and can not make citizens of other States amenable to their process, or conclude them by a judgment in personam
without their consent," or unless such a defendant has expressly or impliedly *303
waived jurisdiction (John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. v.Baskin,
2. Applying the foregoing principles to the instant case, the gist and purpose of the petition was not to obtain a personal judgment against the non-resident defendant, but was merely to exclude any interest which he might claim in the particular policy of insurance.
3. The fact that the policy had been issued in another State where the insured and the beneficiary then resided, or the fact that it was payable at the home office of the insurance company in a foreign State, would not operate to fix the status of the policy, as personal property, in a State other than the one where it was actually held and possessed by the insured, a resident of the county where the suit was brought. Morgan v. Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Co.,
4. "This court sits to review rulings of the trial courts, and it will not pass upon questions on which no ruling has ever been made by the trial judge" (Bourquin v. Bourquin,
Judgment reversed. All the Justices concur. *305